Unit 1a Teamwork

　　Read the article about how Cussons developed teamwork at its Polish subsidiaries.

No Poles Poles apart

　　When Peter Welch, President of Cussons Polska and Uroda SA, arrived at Cussons' newly acquired factory in Poland in 1993, he discovered that the concept of teamwork didn't exist. 'The guy who ran it before had a queue of people outside his office waiting for decisions on everything from taking a day's holiday to major investments. All decisions were made by one man.' Cussons entered Poland by taking over a manufacturer of cleaning products in Wroclaw. Two years later they bought Warsaw-based Uroda toiletries. Turnover increased at Wroclaw from ￡11mto ￡50mand the smaller Uroda quickly grew into a ￡22mbusiness. Both businesses are now major brands in Poland and export to other eastern European markets.

　　But in spite of these successes, it is still hard to develop new approaches. 'The company culture here is the result of fifty years of regulation and control,' explains Welch. 'It's not easy to get people to take on responsibility and be accountable when things go wrong. The sales department used to be a guy next to the phone waiting for it to ring.'

　　To help solve these problems, Cussons brought in three expatriate managers to work closely with the local sales staff in project teams. They also brought in senior Coverdale management consultant Keith Edmonds to work on the team's managerial skills and improve communication within the team. Edmonds held two one-week programmes, working on team-building and developing creative thinking.

　　‘The imaginative ideas participants came up with were extraordinary - electric.' He describes the programmes as helping people recognise that there is a range of effective management styles. 'We wanted to throw new light on old problems.' The participants responded very positively. In one task, they were given ~500 and told to make as much profit with it as possible. 'They came up with amazing ideas,' says Edmonds. 'They put on discos. They went to the Czech border, bought products and then sold them at a profit.'

　　Welch believes the programmes were excellent at 'getting people excited about their jobs'. But he warns, 'we need to ensure that what happens on the programme happens back in the workplace'. The results, however, are already very positive. 'The two programmes cost us about ￡40,000 intotal, including food and accommodation,' says Welch, 'but the returns we are getting from them are huge. We saved about ￡200,000 from the first programme and we're expecting savings of around ￡700,000 from the second one.'

　　The programmes also form the basis of monthly reviews, in which progress is measured against targets set in the programmes. 'You can see the results improving each month. I'm very pleased with the way it has worked out,' says Welch.